"Chill Factor"

 

 

6 x 8"

oil on panel

sold

Every winter I obsess about wanting snow fall here in Atlanta.  I scroll through the Twitter posts of photos during snowstorms with deep envy.  Hence my inspiration for this new painting - bringing to mind one of my favorite landscapes by Claude Monet, The Magpie.

The low level sun behind the fence. The shadows of icy-blues and lavenders. You can imagine how quiet it was when Monet worked on this winter landscape.  The tiny hint of life of the magpie, perched on the gate completely in its element.  It is a perfect painting.

From the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. 

"Drink Up"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I have a great admiration for the artist Winslow Homer.  He was self-taught.  He was an illustrator.  His mother was a watercolor painter and was his first teacher and nurtured his artistic abilities at a young age.  His father, on the other hand, sold his hardware store when Winslow was a teenager and took off for the California gold rush - which failed - then went to Europe to raise cash for a get-rich-quick scheme that failed.

Homer took on an apprenticeship for a lithographer at the age of 19, then joined the staff of Harper's Weekly that lasted over 20 years.  He was sent to the front lines of the American Civil War to document the battle scenes and soldier life, which didn't get much attention but it sharpened his skills.  When he returned to his normal life, he concentrated on paintings of rural life, scenes of childhood and young women - gaining great popularity with his images of nostalgia and simpler times.

Homer had this thing about portraying women and now-freed black men and women in a more dignified and strong way.  He corrected the disparaging images that publications like Harper's Weekly had printed for years in that respect.  

Homer's A Temperance Meeting is a perfect example, painted in 1874, hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Their description of this work is so well written - "Homer's painting cleverly refers to the rising American temperance movement, a crusade against drinking alcohol, by depicting a stout milkmaid pausing while a farmhand drinks from her ladle. Swaying under the weight of her pail and squinting into the sun, she presents the ideal of natural womanhood. Her powerful presence, marked by broad shoulders, muscular arms, and sunburned skin, counters the farmhand's relaxed stance and shaded face, visually reversing traditional gender roles. Far from flirting, the two figures awkwardly avoid each other's gaze, modeling rural wholesomeness and rectitude."

~ Stay healthy and wear your mask.
 

"Hard Act to Follow"

9 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

I spotted this painting on Instagram and recognized it as one of the popular prints I used to frame for customers back in the day.  People commonly referred to it as "the goose girl", its real title is To Pastures New by Sir James Guthrie.  The painting has traveled all over the globe but does reside at the Aberdeen Art Museum in the UK.

James Guthrie was a Scottish painter during the late 1800's - early 1900's, during the Victorian era and what is called the Gilded Age.  The wealthy commissioned portrait artists - think John Singer Sargent and others, including Guthrie, to paint large, elaborate portraits of their patriarchs, wives and children to adorn their mansion walls.  It was all the craze.

The young group of Scottish artists, the Glasgow Boys, who Guthrie was associated with, considered themselves rebellious, rejecting the older generation of artists and declared themselves to be anti-establishment.  Other groups, like the union of newspaper illustrators with members such as Winslow Homer, grew tired of the upper crust being depicted in popular art and felt the need to portray the working class and African-Americans who were experiencing prolonged lives of enslavement during Reconstruction.  They felt an obligation to show their dignity and contributions despite their suppression.

To Pastures New is a perfect example of Guthrie's commitment and sense of pride painting directly from nature and his surroundings in Scotland, portraying a young, hard-working peasant girl filling the canvas like a giant shepherding her animals through the field on a normal workday.  

Please click here for a larger view.

"Welcome Mat"

5 x 5"

oil on panel
sold

It is an afternoon of Zen painting a quiet, remote house.  Find peace whenever you can right?

Early evening outside of Sterling, Colorado.

"Looming"

4 x 4"

oil on panel
sold

Took a breather from a larger painting to do a little house, one of my favorite subjects.  I spotted this little homestead outside of Sterling, Colorado on a road trip - with ominous skies looming in the distance. 

It pretty much expresses how I feel these days.

Checking in.

Checking in and hoping everyone is well. 

I'm working on one of the hardest reproductions I've ever done of the masterpiece by Albert Bierstadt - getting lost in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  There's a certain Zen to painting a scene so peaceful and awesome. 

Albert Bierstadt was a German-American artist, born in Prussia, moved to America at the age of 1.  He traveled westward with a U. S. land surveyor to witness the unseen, vast, mountainous landscapes and returned to New York, completing several paintings from sketches done on his trip.  He went back west for a second time, this time staying a couple of months in the Yosemite Valley - returning back home and painting his massive-scale pieces that he is well known for.

Bierstadt's images were vital to the aspirations of Americans and Europeans who were immigrating to the United States.  It showed them a world that had scarcely been seen and explored.

~ Stay healthy my friends and please stay home if you are able.  There's light at the end of this tunnel.

"Checks and Balances"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

Our United States Capitol Building in Washington DC.  A place where, hopefully, checks and balances will occur again.

"High Over Pennsylvania"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I was quite hypnotized last night watching one of my favorite TV programs - Aerial America, on the Smithsonian Channel.  I saw hundreds of paintings in my head - patterns and patchworks of colors and shapes - I just wish I could cruise over land like a bird.  With a camera.  Aerials get me so excited for someone afraid of heights.

Between the hours-long paintings I'm working on for an upcoming show, I am in need of letting loose, with no worries of details, no sketching, just swirling the oils around.  So with great inspiration from my favorite program, I hope to continue this series for a while and hope you enjoy the view.

This bird's-eye perspective is over the farmlands of Pennsylvania.  

This painting will be my last of 2016 - my 89th painting this year. 

~ and a Happy New Year to you.

"Ode To Autumn"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

One of the many masterpieces in our National Gallery of Art in DC is Winslow Homer's Autumn.  It will take your breath away.  It's casual and approachable.  Homer's rich reds, bronzes, greys, greens and golds are as stunning as the fall leaves that surround us during these few weeks. Ode to autumn.

Winslow Homer is an American treasure, born 1836 in Boston - a printmaker, painter, illustrator.  A little-known fact - at the age of 25 he was sent to the front lines of the Civil War to sketch battle scenes, camp life, commanders - all of which were published in Harper's magazine. Those sketches were later formed into realized paintings when Homer returned home.

Homer then turned his attenton to more nostalgic scenes of childhood and family - then to postwar subjects of Reconstruction and depictions of African American life after emancipation.   The most familiar paintings of Winslow Homer are his landscapes and seascapes - done is his later years when he moved to Prouts Neck, Maine.  It has been said Homer led an isolated life as an old man but continued to paint vigorously, hinting a turn to more abstract and expressive art.  He died at the young age of 74.

Speaking of American treasures....

I watched President Obama's ceremony today, awarding 21 Medal of Freedom recipients who all are truly outstanding humanitarians who've made positive, progressive, compassionate, brilliant contributions of our country.  I will miss President Obama for his grace and thoughtfulness and reminding me what's important and good about us.  Take some time and watch the ceremony in its full version here.

~ Happy Thanksgiving

"The Hill"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

There is so much I'd like to express.

But this is my painting blog. 

Art does soothe the soul when it's needed most.

I've just returned from a trip to visit family and spent an afternoon soothing my soul in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.  As I crossed Constitution Avenue on my walk back to the car from the museum, I stopped to admire our newly-renovated, unscaffolded Capitol Building.  

"Fried Fish"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

I got my Hopper on today.

What was once a neighborhood restaurant around East Atlanta.

"Life On Marsh"

16 x 4"

oil on panel
sold

I decided to paint a serene landscape today, 1 - because I haven't painted a landscape in some time and 2 - it's a mellow Sunday and 3 - because I rocked out to the 30th Anniversary for Bob Dylan all afternoon while I painted.

 left half detail

right half detail

A panoramic view from the coast on Rock Harbor, Cape Cod.

"Flooded"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

This was a study I did in the spring and decided to hang on to it - but this seems like the right time to offer it on auction to raise money. 

I donated the proceeds to the Red Cross Louisiana Flood Relief Fund - join me in an effort to help our friends in need.  To donate directly to the Red Cross Flood Relief Fund, click here.

"Cypresses"

6 x 9-1/2"

oil on panel
sold

Most of you know bits and pieces of the life of Vincent van Gogh.  I promise you, if you've never seen a painting of his in person, you're really missing out on the splendor of brush strokes, the thick, rich colors swirling around the canvas, the movement, the passion that van Gogh had of the world around him.  

Van Gogh was 36-years-old when he painted 'Cypresses' - during his year-long stay at the asylum in Saint-Remy and a year before his death.  It is a more close-up view of the the tall and massive trees he found 'beautiful as regards lines and proportions, like an Eyptian obelisk'.  

"Enlightened"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

On my recent trip to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, I spotted this young lady - she really impressed me with her genuine interest in the art.  I suspect she was taking personal notes of the pieces she really liked.

The painting she is studying is 'Landscape' by Robert Seldon Duncanson.  The artist, at 20 years of age, decided he'd rather paint canvases than houses, which he'd been doing up until then.  He was largely self-taught, had a long career as an artist until his death at age 51.

Shortly after the Civil War broke out, Duncanson exiled to Canada,  seeking out a place where racism would not get in the way of his profession as an artist.  There he studied the landscape paintings of Canadian artists, moved to the UK and toured with his artworks - he was well received and the prestigious London Art Journal declared him a master of landscape painting.

Duncanson had an important impact on American art.  His father was Scottish-Canadian, his mother was African-American and it was said Duncanson had infused his paintings with an African-American sensibility although he once wrote 'I have no color on the brain; all I have on the brain is paint.'

Duncanson's 'Landscape' depicts, very small, loggers floating rafts of timber down the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal with the glow of the sunset, a signature subject of the artist's, of a mundane workday activity in a beautiful setting.

"Zen Time"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

A couple of weeks back, I was refreshing my memory about William Merritt Chase (for this post) and came across 'The Ten' - a revered group of artists that included Chase.  I jotted down several names that I was familiar with and love their work, one of which is John Henry Twachtman.

I always stop in my tracks when I come across Twachtman's paintings, very much like another member of The Ten, Willard Metcalf - they both painted landscapes that are so calming, so still, so very Zen.  I especially love their snow scenes.  They painted loose, painterly, seemingly quick - most likely they were outdoors painting plein-air.

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Twachtman's 'Arques-la-Bataille' hangs in front of a bench for all the right reasons.  The scene is calm, the color palette is soothing and low-key - a good painting to get lost in.

Twachtman was an American artist, from Cincinnati - traveled and studied abroad with fellow artists and discovered like-minded painters who took on the Impressionistic style of the times, which was in the mid-to-end of the 1800's.

It's also my moment of Zen to paint these images - taking rich greens and blues and lavenders and greying them down a notch.  It made for a mellow day of painting.

"Caucus Country"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

An ode to the beauty of a simple, stately farmhouse in Middle America, Iowa.

Two Paintings Going on Auction

Just a head's up - these two paintings are in my studio and need a good home.

'The Reel Thing'

7 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

'The Chapel at Palmetto Bluff'

7 x 9"

oil on panel

sold

"Nocturne"

5 x 7"

oil on panel
sold

One of these days, or nights, I'll travel around and take photos for a long-desired series of nocturne paintings.   This new piece is an addition to my series A to Z.

From a quiet alley late at night in Savannah, Georgia.

"Industrial"

4 x 12"

oil on panel
sold

I'm back to painting in my spankin' clean studio - with this new addition to my series A to Z.  I played with a different technique, using a white ground rather than black,  painting different values of a grey-umber then scratching and washing and wiping out areas.   I love it.

From the industrial district outside of Seattle, Washington.